


Change of meaning

by HoneyB7



Category: Eurovision Song Contest RPF, Melekseev
Genre: (?), Fluff, Hurt/confort, M/M, Romance, a little little little of intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 15:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15099518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyB7/pseuds/HoneyB7
Summary: Why Alekseev has never sung 'Forever' again? Mélovin not only wants to know; he wants to help. After seeing him in a concert in Kiev, he tries to make a plan to find out what happens with that specific song: why Alekseev refuses to sing the song that means so much not only for his fans and himself, but also in their relationship?





	Change of meaning

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I’m here with another Melekseev delirium and I really hope you like it! 
> 
> Thanks for reading and forgive my poor English, please; Spanish is my first language and I'm working very hard to be better in others.
> 
> I wrote this for fun, love and English practice.
> 
> If you read despite the mistakes and the silly details (this time there's a lot, sorry) that I chose for the plot, thank you so much! ♥

**N** othing moves him more than the beginning of 'Forever'. Mélovin feels something special for that song, something that it’s as obvious as inexplicable. Because he already knew Alekseev, he already knew he had great hits, ‘Снов осколки’, ‘Пьяное солнце’ or ‘Океанами cтали’, also ‘Навсегда’, the direct _sister_ of his favorite, but 'Forever' is different.

It’s the song for which he loves him as he does.

He remembers, in an instant, all the images that the word ‘forever’ triggers within his memory: the rose, the back, the trembling, the emotion expressed by the sad eyes. He reminds Alekseev giving his favorite performance of that fateful May 8; he reminds, above all, how much emotion it had unleashed in him to see it and to hear it from the backstage, in which he was precisely to offer his support to him, the one with whom he had most naturally connected within the contest.

And he saw him. And the trembling of the body together with the emotion of the eyes and the vulnerable color of the voice made Mélovin realize everything that he felt for him: he was the person who had been so hard to find, the one who had everything he longed for in another person, the internal and external beauty carved to his measure; the emotional, physical and intellectual complement that generated him the most powerful love that could exist.

That’s why 'Forever' is, among Alekseev's repertoire, his favorite: it’s the song to which he owes all the happiness that he feels in his life since then.

However, the smile that Alekseev has drawn in him from the stage doesn’t last in Mélovin’s mouth, not today: inexplicably although it’s the version that starts with the piano, the revamp, Alekseev sings ‘Навсегда’.

Missing, Mélovin studies Alekseev’s body language; he thinks he has enough knowledge of him to understand what he’s feeling, but on stage he always becomes more enigmatic than usual: he sees him, he hears him sing, but he cannot figure out  anything.

Simply, it’s like Alekseev were someone else.

Mélovin has sung just before him and has remained hidden on one side of the stage to see him live. When ‘Навсегда’ ends, Alekseev greets the audience that choirs his name: his participation in the Kiev’s XMusicX Festival 2018 in this November night is over. Alekseev returns the gaze he gives him for a little moment; what he transmits is impossible to read, which confuses Mélovin even more. When Alekseev walks towards his direction, Mélovin knows it's time to leave.

There’s no time for an analysis; it’s time to pretend.

He walks fast, then runs; he goes through the backstage knowing that he must be cautious with the press, the public and the rumors that, in whispers, have begun to appear. They shouldn’t see him near Alekseev nor should they know what is happening between them, it’s still too early or maybe the opportunity never arrives, but the two know that it’s not convenient to say it, not being the way things are.

The belief that what they feel is a bad thing; absurdities of an ignorant world.

When Mélovin is finally locked in the dressing room after escape from Artem and the rest of his team, he sits in front of the mirror with his Smartphone in his hands.

'Niki, are you okay?' writes in the chat that belongs to them.

He erases that before sending the definitive message: 'you were great'.

Alekseev answers him three minutes later:

'It wasn’t my best…’

Mélovin bites his right cheek from the inside: that Alekseev's mode, the mode that’s so difficult to deal with. His perfectionist side, the artist who demands himself to a suffocating level in each presentation. That part of Alekseev that harms so much Alekseev himself, or rather Nikita, the person who is always behind.

'I disagree. See you in your apartment,' Mélovin replies, and blocks the Smartphone knowing that he will not receive an answer.

He leaves the dressing room after getting ready, arranges some details with his team and goes away with Artem.

"Will you go to see him?" asks his best friend as they walk towards the exit where a lot of fans are waiting.

"I'll be careful, don’t worry," replies Mélovin as he greets the guard who opens the back door to the outside.

It follows screams,  _selfies_ , hugs, words of affection, roses. One, two, three bouquets of roses. Fifteen bouquets, seventeen.

If they _knew_.

Finally in the car, Artem drives to Alekseev's apartment while Mélovin flips through fan letters: he loves to read them with Alekseev in the morning, it will be better to reserve those letters for that occasion, so he puts them in one of the pockets of his coat.

"I felt he was nervous today," Artem says more serious than he frequents in trivial conversations with his best friend, “’А я пливу’ sounded great, also the others, but ‘Навсегда’…"

More serious than he also frequents, Mélovin responds with a simple "I know". Artem studies him from the corner of his eye for an instant. 

"You're very sweet," Artem says, "don’t worry too much and try to chat with him."

"Since when do you give me love advices?"

"Since I noticed how clumsy you are for these things, and for several more, by the way"

They laugh together. Soon, Artem parks around the building where Alekseev lives. Mélovin doesn’t get off the car without first observing the back seat: he received twenty-one bouquets of roses in total.

From a bouquet, he extracts a rose and hides it inside his coat. Then, he gets off at a firm pace.

Mélovin arrives at the building and passes quickly with his own keys. After a short elevator ride, he reaches the 8th floor and enters department B, but not before laughing of the mystical beliefs of Alekseev and the number 8.

When he cross the door and closes it behind his back, releases in a sigh everything that he has contained since the failed start of 'Forever'.

He puts himself comfortable and walks through the minimalist though aesthetic and spacious apartment looking sideways at some abstract paintings hanging on the walls; Alekseev has good taste and he loves it. He sits on the black leather three-seater couch and watches the unlit television that’s in front of him. He sighs again, and there’s no more to do than wait for him, than think about the enigmatic gesture that Alekseev had on the stage, in the tremor that lurked his body, in that ‘Навсегда’ which, he’s sure, was supposed to be 'Forever'.

Then, he gets distracted thinking about cooking something, but he has no idea of what: Alekseev has been on a strict diet for months and he doesn’t want to prepare something that he will not eat. Finally, he thinks about something romantic: what if he waits for Alekseev in some _special_ way? What if he makes some offer a bit perverted and a bit sweet at the same time, like taking a bath together or spending some special moment with one of their favorite albums in the background? He turns on the TV, opens Netflix and watches the Lady Gaga’s documentary _again_ , confused.

"I don’t know what to do when he gets like this, _mom_ ," he tells to his favorite artist.

He looks at the rose he has left on the coffee table that’s in front of the couch: since how long have him not heard Alekseev sing 'Forever'? Thinking about it, he discovers that months have passed, complete several months. In the count, it doesn’t take long to reach May 8th. Although Mélovin has seen him live about three times, Alekseev always tells him everything after each concert. Every night, in person or by chat, he says the same names when he tells him the set-list. ‘Океанами cтали’, ‘Снов осколки’, ‘Сберегу’, ‘Пьяное солнце’; those are the most frequent.

Mélovin takes his Smartphone while Lady Gaga continues in the background on Netflix. Goes back in the chat where he always talks with Alekseev and finds the same names. Depending on the concert, if it was a solo or inside a festival, he finds other names too. ‘ОМА’, ‘Держи’, ‘Всё успеть’, 'Let's get started', ‘А я пливу’, ‘Чувствую душой’...

"With which song you ended the show?": the question that he always asks. He reads the same question in August, in September, in July, in October.

"'Навсегда'": the answer that Alekseev always gives him.

'Forever' doesn’t appear even once.

Alekseev has been very reserved in all what respects to Eurovision. During the months that they have been together, he hasn’t mentioned the subject more than once or twice, and only to tell him something about 'Under the ladder' or 'La forza', a song that Alekseev mentions in joke only to make Mélovin feel jealous because that suspicion that he had of Alekseev's attraction to Elina. Never speaks about 'Forever', roses, elimination. Only once, perhaps, precisely the night after the final, Alekseev had said something to him as they kissed with inconceivable passion that they had no way to stop.

"I'm happy that it's over."

"Happy?"

"Yes. I just... I just want to concentrate on my concerts, that's all."

Mélovin tried to inquire but there was no way: Alekseev kissed him in such a way that nothing but sweep every thought from his mind he could do.

"You certainly did it on purpose," concludes Mélovin now.

Because Alekseev well knows how to nullify his reason.

“Damn…”

Mélovin wonders if it’s because of language, which would be obvious, since ’Навсегда’ is more understandable than 'Forever' for the Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian public that Alekseev frequents. But Alekseev has been in other countries in recent months, like Germany, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, and has also made his first visit to Poland, where he had gone better than expected. Eurovision has given him more diffusion in many countries and it has been thanks not only to his effort and his excellent repertoire, but to 'Forever' and the love that, despite the results obtained, had won among the euro-fans.

So?

Moreover, if the reason was the language, there would be no explanation for the tremor that seized him when he sang ‘Навсегда’. His stage attitude made a 180 degree turn; he went from the joy that’s so characteristic on him when he sings - different from the one that he has the rest of the time, even when he’s alone with him - to a tension that almost looked like anguish.

Yes, there have to be another reason.

Unable to continue watching the documentary, Mélovin turns off the television. He puts music on his Smartphone and thinks at the rhythm of 'Venus'.

 _"When you touch me I die just a little inside. I wonder if this could be love…_ ," he sings in whispers, absentmindedly.

What if Alekseev doesn’t sing 'Forever' precisely because of the bad result in Eurovision? He stops singing when he realizes that this may be the reason. Perhaps, singing ‘Навсегда’ is easier for him, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be less painful.

It saddens him to think about that. He remembers Alekseev the first time they had spoken when they crossed in Amsterdam, remembers the enthusiasm that Alekseev felt for 'Forever' and how much he liked to sing that song, to the point of constantly whispering it despite being surrounded by people...

The wound has to be deep if he refuses to sing ‘Forever’. Probably it is, and Alekseev is hiding everything under that enigmatic mode that characterizes him so much when he’s in tension. It’s not easy, not for him, to admit that something hurts a lot.

But it shows.

Mélovin turns off the music, walks around the room and decides what to do: he will try to reach the subject to make him feel better about that issue. Then he will take him to the bedroom, he will give him some kisses and urge Alekseev to relax. Tomorrow morning, fresh and released after a good, deep conversation, they will read fan letters together.

Yes!

Alekseev arrives a few minutes later. Mélovin runs to help him when he sees him carrying an absurd amount of bouquets. Almost all flowers are red roses.

"For me?" Mélovin asks when he takes half of the bouquets from Alekseev.

He laughs and keeps quiet. Mélovin soon realizes that he continues with that mode he had on stage, with that enigmatic eyes.

They leave the bouquets on the smallest sofa and look at each other. Mélovin notes that Alekseev has changed the clothes he had on stage, and now he’s wearing jeans and a white t-shirt covered by a black coat. Simple, but beautiful.

Too beautiful and talented to suffer because old injustices.

"There’re too many roses," Mélovin says.

Alekseev sighs while he gets off his coat. When he looks to the floor after that, Mélovin notices that he’s not only in an enigmatic mode, but in a silent mode. This is the Alekseev that most represents a challenge; the night will be long.

Thoughtful and also somewhat stressed, Mélovin turns his back to look towards the kitchen door. Going back to his initial plan, he proposes the first thing that comes to his mind to take Alekseev out of that complicated mix of modes:

"Do you want me to cook something? I don’t know how much you have in the refrigerator, but if you tell me what you want, I…"

Hands hold him by the elbows, pull him and push him towards the big couch. When Mélovin reacts, he has Alekseev astride him and is cornered by legs that exert force against the outer side of his thighs.

"I want _you_ ," Alekseev says in the most tender voice he has, almost as a child, an innocent tone that has nothing to do with what he suggests in that pose.

Mélovin takes a deep breath: so he’s also in that mode? The provocative little boy mode, when Alekseev uses the tenderness that he transmits to get what he wants, a way that activates when it’s him, Mélovin and nothing else, what he needs to obtain.

"I..." Mélovin sighs between turned on and fun. For some reason, reacting to the situation it costs him more than it usually does.

Alekseev kisses him; thinking, like every damn time, becomes useless.

Dizzy with the speed with which he feels the heat rise inside his body and heart, Mélovin returns the kiss as best he can, overwhelmed by Alekseev's passion, for the slowness, detail and intensity with which he kisses him. He feels how Alekseev takes him from his chin, how it makes him turn his head, how he deepens the kiss denoting all the experience that sometimes, by the mere act of seducing him, pretends not to have. And how Alekseev disarms Mélovin when he does that, because it doesn’t matter what attitude he takes or what mode he’s in; the spell with which he reduces him brings out the best of both each time.

He feels how Alekseev moves his hips against him, slowly but sharply, with eyes full of innocence and erotic intentions managing his entire body. Mélovin gasps with no more air in contact with the desperate lips that he kiss. He struggles with the arousal that dominates him, needing to be elsewhere and in another position, when he falls on the couch with Alekseev on top of him, sitting on his hips, moving his body against him in an obvious suggestion.

Alekseev releases his lips for just a moment; Mélovin gathers all the air he can, but nothing seems enough, not now.

When he crosses his gaze with Alekseev's, however, he doesn’t see any specific mode in his attitude. He doesn’t see the enigma, the provocation, the silence, the passion; he sees Nikita with his naked soul, sad, longing for an escape that can rescue him from the darkness in which he has sunk tonight.

The same eyes as when his show ended, but finally readable: what he transmits is disconsolation.

" _Niki_..."

Alekseev kisses him on the neck, on the cheeks, on the shoulders, on the chin; he wants to continue no matter what. Mélovin quickly understands what is involved in the enigma: Alekseev knows that he knows, knows that he has noticed something, and is trying to evade the subject.

Although with difficulty due to the enjoyment of everything that Alekseev is causing in him, Mélovin strokes his back from the base to the shoulders and, passing through his neck, reaches his cheeks. Taking Alekseev from there, he urges him to stop.

"What happened?" Mélovin asks.

With the softest smile, Alekseev responds:

"Nothing."

Mélovin laughs.

"You lie."

"No."

"Nikita, you underestimate me."

"I don’t underestimate you."

"You do."

"I don’t."

"Then why do you look as sad as when you were on stage singing 'Навсегда' tonight?"

As if he had passed a limit that he shouldn’t pass, Mélovin notes Alekseev offended. He seats on his hip and looks toward the coffee table. Seeing the rose that Mélovin had separated for him, without knowing for sure what it was doing there, the discomfort is interspersed with a hint of pain.

Mélovin looks at the rose too. Stretching out his hand, he takes it and extends it to Alekseev.

"I brought this for you; I… I was going to ask you to sing 'Forever' for me tonight!"

The discomfort fades in Alekseev's eyes; the nostalgia, the impotence, the anguish that he expresses when he smiles at the rose with an absent gesture are the main priorities in his face. Mélovin understands that he was right: the problem is 'Forever'.

"You can tell me. I hear you, _Niki_. I want to help you."

Alekseev doesn’t answer; he looks at the rose in silence with the same absent gesture and the same fake smile. Mélovin takes him by the waist and sits down. He hugs him, and even then Alekseev doesn’t take his eyes off the rose.

Mélovin squeezes him, caresses him, kisses his cheek with the sole intention of expressing love. Alekseev sighs, closes his eyes and rests his eyelids on his shoulder.

It’s like he has finally surrender.

Feeling how Alekseev begins to tremble in his arms, Mélovin feels his own heart accelerate. Needing to do something to stop the advance of sadness, he speaks:

"You loved 'Forever' like no other Eurovision contestant loved their song, you were always singing it, and you did it the first time that I saw you: it was not for practice, not completely; you were happy, because you loved your song deeply.”

Sunk in his shoulder, Alekseev nods.

"Yes,” he responds.

"You've never done the revamp with 'Навсегда’..."

"I don’t."

"You were going to sing 'Forever' today…"

"Yes."

"And what happened, why did you sing in Russian and not in English?"

"Because I hate 'Forever',  _Kostya_ , that's all."

Mélovin, delicately, undoes the embrace to be able to look at him: Alekseev looks at the rose again, but the gesture is no longer absent, but sad in its entirety.

"You cannot hate _her_ , Nikita."

"You don’t understand…"

"Yes, I understand: you get a bad result in Eurovision and it was unfair and we've already talked about this, but you can’t hate _her_ for that."

"But…"

"What?"

Only then Alekseev leaves the rose to look at him. Mélovin feels that he’s looking straight at the sun.

"I can´t sing that song, I just ... I can’t, I don’t know, I can’t, that's why I hate it."

"Because you can’t?"

"Because I can’t feel anymore... at the height of that song; I've tried to feel it as before, but it's impossible... It's too far away from me, too high, and I can’t reach it anymore..."

“But…”

“I’m not worthy, not enough, not for that song… I just feel that… I feel that I will ruin it all… _again_.”

Alekseev smiles with tenderness. Mélovin feels how his words echoes in his own feelings, how it transports him in time to direct him to one of the most difficult moments of his career, the one that had resulted in one of the best.

Vibdir 2017, 'Wonder', third place, under O. Torvald , under Tayanna.

Mélovin loved 'Wonder' as one of his most special _daughters_ , because that‘s how he felt his songs, like beloved _daughters_. He had sung _her_ with an awesome love, he had given his all, but losing in the National Final had come with months of insecurity with his song. He still loved _her_ , but singing _her_ hurt especially hard. It was difficult every time.

Until, listening to _her_ in his bed one night after a concert where he had felt how tears had filled his eyes when he sang _her_ , full of frustration, feeling that he didn’t deserve his own _daughter_ , another idea came to him.

He stopped the song and pressed his hands to his own chest.

" _Nara_   _nara_   _na_   _na_   _na, na_   _na_   _naaa_..." he sang in a whisper.

After the birth of 'Under the ladder', singing 'Wonder' never hurt him again, simply because he had managed to tie another kind of emotion with the song. Not the frustration of not being able to win.

The satisfaction of having felt 'Under the ladder' in his heart thanks to _her_.

He smiles when he returns to the present: Alekseev looks confused, almost ashamed.

"You must think that I'm a fool…" he says with a sad smile.

Mélovin hugs him tightly.

"In fact, no: I understand you, but let's not talk about me!"

Mélovin feels so full of energy that he lifts Alekseev in his arms and sit him on the couch, something that doesn’t cost a bit thanks to the notorious difference in height and build between them. He sits next to Alekseev, takes his hand and runs his eyes around the room. Ordering ideas is imperative before saying what he feels so clear.

When he looks at the rose on the table, the answer becomes evident.

"Sometimes we feel that, that a song is too much for us. It happened to me, it's like your songs were your _daughters_ , it's like they're all your daughters but you not get along with one, that's why you sing so well 'Сберегу', 'Океанами cтали' or 'Пьяное солнце', but with 'Forever' something else happens to you: it’s the _daughter_ with who you have fought and with who you have not yet managed to engage in a conversation that allows you to make peace with _her_. That's why you get nervous and that's why you tremble; that's why you feel sad when you sing 'Навсегда', which is the song that reminds you the most to _her_ for obvious reasons..."

Alekseev's eyes shine. He nods almost crying. Proud of himself, Mélovin continues while stroking an Alekseev's hand with his own:

"You have to make peace with _her_!" That's it, _Niki_ : you have to talk to ‘Forever’, face _her_ and tell _her_ everything you feel, you have to find a way to do it and overcome that bad drink, because it's a lie that you're not up to it, it's just the insecurity with the song that Eurovision unfairly provoked you."

Looking down, Alekseev laughs. Mélovin notes how he looks at the linked hands of them, how Alekseev caresses him with a thumb to which, soon, the other joins too. When Mélovin looks up, Alekseev does too.

They contemplate themselves in a trance of wonderful empathy and things feel as possible as ever.

"And how do you think that I should talk to _her_? Do I invite _her_ to a tea in a nice coffee shop in the center and tell _her_ ‘we should talk’?"

Laughs fill the department. Mélovin is ashamed, because he doesn’t know he has the answer. When he notices that he has it, happy, he kisses Alekseev's hands with devotion.

"Let's say it like this: you have the song tied to a bad memory. If you tie the song to a good one, to something that makes you feel good, maybe you can overcome this issue."

"Something that makes me feels good..."

“A new meaning that makes you feel more secure…”

Alekseev is full of doubts. Soon, when he looks at the rose, replaces doubt with conviction. He takes the rose from the table and hands it to Mélovin, who takes it without blinking, still looking into his eyes, touched by how much he feels that Alekseev longs to solve this problem.

Why? Well, because it's his _daughter_ , of course, and he loves _her_.

And maybe it's also because of him, because the song is equally special for both of them, for what their relationship means.

To his surprise, Alekseev invites him to lie over his body. 

Alekseev smiles, blushing; Mélovin feels like the happiest child for the simple fact of being able to see the most perfect image of all time, Alekseev’s eyes full of emotions and his mouth smiling so bright, with a red rose between them doing the image more perfect, almost unbearable.

"Could you sing with me?"

Alekseev's question moves Mélovin’s heart. Seriously? It’s real? Is him what he wants to tie to 'Forever' to be able to feel love for _her_ again? The honor that the idea means fills him with gratitude.

"I could sing all your discography and all Lady Gaga’s B Sides if you ask me."

Alekseev leans back to laugh eagerly. Mélovin knows himself so undone by the joy that he feels that he no longer dominates any filter: Alekseev has extracted all the tenderness that he possesses and that he so well hides at times. Ah, with what necessity does he named Gaga! But how inevitable is to be a child, how inevitable is to say the absurd and not to stop because of guilt or shyness.

With Alekseev, being himself is as acceptable as it _must_ be.

"It's ok with 'Forever', thanks."

"Are you rejecting my _mom_?"

"You _always_ sing her songs, Kostyantyn."

"Well, well... But next time we'll sing her songs too! I don’t know why but I kill for listening to you singing 'Lovegame', it would be good with your higher notes."

"Do you believe so…?"

Mélovin feels Alekseev's hand go up and down his waist; his eyes, meanwhile, travels between his eyes and his mouth. Although he’s a little tense considering how erotic feels this intimate pose, himself between Alekseev’s legs, over his body and capable of everything, Mélovin swallows and gathers courage.

"So... we sing together?"

Alekseev nods slowly, calmly. However, Mélovin notices how he has started to tremble just like on stage. He notices him breathing with difficulty; he sees how his gaze is covered with doubts. Mélovin stops everything dropping the rose to the floor and kissing him with irrepressible passion. He sinks on him, hugs him with impetus, and feels how Alekseev is drowning under his weight and the vehemence of his mouth. When the kiss ends, he doesn’t need to ask him if he trembles for another reason, because Mélovin knows it just by looking at him: Alekseev trembles because of him, not because of the song.

" _There_   _must_   _be_   _something_   _that_   _we_   _call_   _love_...” Mélovin sings almost out of tune and laughing, with no air to reach but with enough feeling.

Alekseev's eyes look like crystals when ends covered in tears. Smiling and with less air than Mélovin, he also sings:

" _Wherever_   _I_   _go_   _I_   _coming_   _back_..."

Mélovin continues:

" _And time cannot knock me of my track_..."

" _This_   _resolution_   _is_   _final_... "

Alekseev asks something with his eyes; Mélovin nods, like if he were saying ‘yes’, that he’s doing well, something that Alekseev thanks by hugging him against his body. With his head, Mélovin tells him to sing together. They do it in unison, Alekseev with his higher tone, Mélovin with the lower:

" _There must be something that we call love, it's when you craving to say_ her _name, and my reality seems to break apart with_ her _arrival_..."

They smile at each other: their voices, together, sound naturally good, in perfect harmony despite the tension and doubts, because of the love they feel. Mélovin whispers a "continue alone, please" when Alekseev is trembling more than ever.

" _No need to worry_..." he sings timidly.

A few more words, untidy, devoid of air and forcefulness, to then unleash the miracle: Mélovin sees how Alekseev closes his eyes and ends in a crushing concentration. Excited, Mélovin kisses his cheek when he hears him continue.

" _Windows_   _wide_   _open_..."

The perfection with which he sings from that point is one of the most incredible that Mélovin has heard from him; inevitable is not doing what he does, moving from the cheek to the neck, from the neck to the chest, where he kisses over the clothes while Alekseev, with his head thrown back, his brow furrowed and his eyes tightly closed, sings the next part wrapped no longer in an enigma, but in the truth of his feelings. He hugs his head, he sinks it in his chest and caresses his face; Mélovin knows that he’s dedicating every word to him, every syllable, as if they belonged to no one else.

What Mélovin had longed when he heard 'Forever' that fateful May 8th: that song was not for anyone but him.

The second chorus sounds; Alekseev's voice is on the edge of breaking, overflowing with an emotion as supreme as the kind of beauty that within the song defines. Mélovin kisses his neck again, moves Alekseev’s head to the right and sinks into his skin. Alekseev sings almost moaning the words; hear him singing like this, with this lack of air, with this beautiful passion, it’s almost as erotic as making love.

Mélovin feels how Alekseev, with his hands, begs him to look him in the eyes.

" _When I first saw you here I knew that I was blind before you_..." he sings with a tear falling through the skin of his face.

What follows is as natural as imperative: they kiss, squeeze, turn their faces and deepen in each other, Mélovin with that precision mixed with passion and also with the innocence of youth, Alekseev with that visceral need to shout everything that he feels and can’t say.

They stop. Without more air or reason, wrapped in the same and together, they ask for the same with their eyes.

" _No_   _need_   _to_   _worry_..." they sing as before, Alekseev with the higher tone, Mélovin with the lower; their mouths, wet and reddened, panting, rub against each other as they sing. On the floor, meanwhile, the rose that brings the bad memory of that day of May becomes the best of all.

When they join to the other at the end, there’re no traces of pain left. What makes Alekseev's body tremble so humanly, with Mélovin and no one around, is just happiness.

 

 **~~~**  

 

 **H** e observes the audience from the stage of that club lost among the streets of Minsk: it's about them, always. About the fans, about what they transmit to him, about the emotions that their eyes shout to him. It’s mutual and he knows it.

It’s time to make them part of the pleasant memory too. Being in Belarus is too good to do it for the first time.

"I have time without singing this song in a concert, I hope you can help me..." he says, and he feels how the emotion makes his body tremble when his band plays the beginning of 'Forever’.

He sings, and people sing with him. Every word, every verse. In the red lights that surround him, he doesn't see Lisbon, he no longer feels how the extreme emotion that for so many things and so many reasons sinks him; he feels how his fans raise him in the same emotional bond with another reason and another meaning, the one they share when they’re like this, with him on stage, with them in the audience.

He travels, turns back in time and sees Mélovin; he feels him kissing his chest, singing with him. By touching his own chest while singing, the truth envelops him just like that time.

Arriving at his favorite part, Alekseev looks at them and swears to see Mélovin in each and every one of them; he feels them all equally.

" _I was blind before you_ "; and is true.

He extends the microphone to the audience; when his fans continue with the rest, it only remains for him to close his eyes and enjoy.

Just like that time, enjoy.

Love 'Forever' for the meaning that has acquired in his life since singing it along with Mélovin in the living room of his apartment, far away from the bittersweet result in Eurovision: the song thanks to which he has built a thousand more bridges made with feelings, an eternal bond with them all. With his fans, with Belarus, with Mélovin.

With the perpetuity that he needs to feel always boiling inside his heart, the perpetuity of happiness shining in his life.

 _Forever_.

* * *

 

**f i n**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. :')
> 
> I have to stop writing stories where Mélovin comforts Alekseev for something (I'm writing another story where the premise is another, I swear… I just ended this first u.u), but I'm very addicted to hurt/comfort and write that side so human that I feel to Alekseev when he sings linked with the side so overflowing with hope that I feel to Mélovin: it’s the image of the two of them that exists in my mind! It’s what the two transmit to me in the favorite song that I have of each one, precisely 'Forever' and 'Wonder', which I chose for this plot; it’s my head canon of this representation based on them that I love so much to write.
> 
> I wrote this fanfiction after watching a video of Alekseev singing 'Навсегда' in a festival that I think was in Ukraine: I noticed him very sad. Big was my surprise when I read comments in English on YouTube where other people said they noticed the same thing. I didn’t think too much about why I was writing this, but I decided to enjoy it.
> 
> If you read it, I hope you liked it. ♥
> 
> A translation note: in Spanish, the language in which I originally wrote this story, nouns, adjectives and articles have gender. "Song" («canción») is feminine, that's why I talked about the songs as 'daughters'. I thought about changing it and making it more accurate, but as a tribute to someone I love with all my heart, my friend D., who is a singer & writer and always talks to me about her daughters, I decided to leave it. Sorry if the detail is somewhat disconcerting in English, but I did it for personal reasons.
> 
> So… Artem knows how to drive? Alekseev lives in an apartment? Mélovin sees Lady Gaga’s documentary when he's boring and sing her songs all the time? I don't know! XD Sorry again for that amount of silly details. 
> 
> I dedicate this story to the beautiful Tumblr fandom. It’s like a great house for me, a place that I love to go in my spare time to smile. I adored it! I hope this small contribution - despite the mistakes - can be worthy of such a great place. 
> 
> Thanks for everything! ♥


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